[The article has been updated with the announcement from A Better Florist].

According to their “We’re Sorry :(” blog post, they have issued a lengthy explanation on why their delivery system failed, noting that they had received a huge surge in orders as compared to the previous year, and despite working overtime and roping in extra help, they were still unable to the cope with the orders.

It also certainly did not help when the startup deleted yesterday’s main thread of complaints from their Facebook page.

Image Credit: A Better Florist Facebook

Safe to say that things were not looking good for the A Better Florist team by the time the complaints starting surging, but deleting comments is never an acceptable response.

So What Went Wrong?

It is likely that this was a case of biting of more than you can chew.

The startup built up a lot of Valentine’s Day hype pre-event with influencers and promotion campaigns, and in all likelihood they were not able to manage all the orders.

As of the moment, the team has yet to give a full explanation of what exactly went wrong, but have instead issued an apology message on their Facebook wall, apologising to Valentine bouquet customers.

Image Credit: A Better Florist Facebook

On co-founder Steve Feiner’s Facebook page, he also reflected on how it had been a true nightmare of an occasion for the entire team.

Image Credit: Steve Feiner Facebook

But before we all start jumping onto the bandwagon of netizen slamming, we have to remember that the ones running around behind the startup brand are human too, and they are not infallible.

Granted, they might have not handled the Valentine’s fiasco as adeptly as they could have, but if you’ve read any of our previous startup stories, then you’d know that entrepreneurs are some of the hardest working people.

Before this event, the Singapore startup had a sterling reputation, unlike other brands we can name. And so if this event hit you hard, it definitely would have hit them even many more times worse, and their one-time faux pas is guaranteed to see rippling after-shocks.

We have reached out to A Better Florist and will update this article as we go along.